Not What It Seems
by ThatsNoneofYourBusiness
Summary: After an oddly burned body is brought to the lab, strange things begin to happen. As the investigation continues, a dark and strange suspect turns up, and the crew begins to believe that this is no normal murder.
1. Smoking Body

Bones knelt beside the still-smoking body. The smell was incredibly putrid, much more so than a regular decomposing body. The bones were charred a pitch black, visible around the chunks raw and bubbling burned skin. Oddly, though, bits of cloth were only slightly scorched.

"This is very strange." Bones said. Booth, who stood above her and was holding his nose, looked down at her,

"What kind of strange?" he asked, voice nasally,

"I think….he was burned from the inside." she said slowly, "Look at the smoke."

She pointed at the small wisps of smoke rising up from between the exposed ribs, curling and twisting with the air,

"And some of his skin is still intact," again she pointed to just above where the right nipple would have been, where a small patch of skin lay, "But that's looks like it's burned or tattooed. I'll have Angela scan it once it's clean."

"Huh, how is that possible? Burning from the inside out?" Booth asked. Bones stood up,

"Maybe he was killed and then had lighter fluid stuck inside the body cavity?" she said, peeling off her gloves, "But Cam will need to examine the remaining tissue for that."

"That's an odd way of getting rid of a body." Booth said, still holding his nose, "Takes a lot longer, instead of burning it into oblivion." Then he turned to back towards the group of jumpsuits behind them,

"Okay, pack him up!" he shouted, and they quickly moved in and began bagging the corpse. He and Bones began climbing the hill back towards the SUV.

"I'm gonna need a shower after this." he grumbled, "I'll bet that smell is going to follow me all day."

Bones leaned in towards him and sniffed,

"It's not just the body." she said nonchalantly. Booth paused,

"Wait, what?"

As they climbed in the car, they were unaware of the eye watching from inside the tree line. They seemed to blend in with the shadows, despite the smoldering and satisfied expression that comes with getting revenge.

Once back at the lab, the interns swarmed the body and began picking it apart. Under instruction, they carefully separated the bits skin from the bones, and then the cloth from that.

"No organs?" Cam asked when she came up the steps of the platform, "That doesn't leave much for me to examine."

"There's some skin, though." Wendell added helpfully.

"And clothes for me." Hodgins said with a wide grin, grabbing the two containers of cloth. Then he looked back to Wendell,

"Burned from the inside, huh?" he asked. Wendell shrugged,

"That's what it seems to be. The bones are black, which means the fire was incredibly hot and burned quick, but there is leftover skin that's only slightly burned. And on top of that, there's cloth left!"

"How odd." Hodgins said, leaning closer to the body, "Maybe—"

"Do not say aliens, Doctor Hodgins." Cam interrupted, "We have had more than enough of your speculations the last couple of days."

Hodgins shrugged good-naturedly and grinned back at Wendell. He raised an eyebrow. Wendell nodded.

"And no experiments without my permission." Cam snapped, catching their interaction. Hodges deflated,

"Oh come on!" he said. Cam held up her hand,

"No." she said, "No. No. No. Go analyze your clothes, Doctor Hodgins."

He rolled his eyes and stopped off the platform. Cam turned to Wendell,

"And you're not helping."

Wendell gave a sheepish grin and then startled when he remembered something,

"Oh, Dr. Brennan wants you to check out this patch here," he said, pointing at the oddly burned patch on the tray, "She thinks it could be a tattoo."

Cam nodded, and left with the tray.

Within a few moments, she had cleaned the patch of skin and handed to Angela to scan.

"This is so gross." Angela mumbled, placing the skin on the scanner, "So, is it a tattoo?"

"No, it looks like an intentional burn." Cam said, "There's no trace of ink and the marks are pretty blackened underneath the blistering. Can you separate the two?"

"Ew," Angela added, typing on the keyboard. The skin popped up on the screen and slowly the blistering was scanned away, leaving a clear burn.

"Not good." Cam said, staring at it.

"Pentagram." Angela said with a frown.

"No, it's an upside down pentagram. Look at the two top parts of the star," Cam said, pointing at the screen, "Those represent goat horns. It's Satanic."

"What is?" Hodgins asked, popping into the room. He looked at the screen, "Woah, not good. We have a satanic ritual on our hands." he paused, "And he was burned from the inside…."

"No, no," Cam started, "No speculating. For all we know, he could have burned that into his skin as a teenager."

"Sorry, Cam," Angela said, punching a few keys and getting pop-up on the screen, "The Angela-Tron says it's recent."

Cam sighed,

"I'll go tell Brennan and Seeley," she said.

Suddenly, the screen on the Anagela-Tron went haywire, the data scattering and repeated in waves, jumping around the screen. Angela typed furiously on her keyboard, when a moment later, everything stilled.

"That's weird." she said, typing a little more. A data pop-up appeared,

"Electrical interference." she read aloud.

"Oh, yes." Hodgins said, looking excited, "This is gonna be great."

"Doctor Hodgins!" Cam shouted, but he had already scampered out of the room.


	2. Scarlet Ink

The following morning found the lab in a frenzy. When one of the interns came in early, he found the skin decomposing at a wild rate. Even the bones were becoming fragile. Wendell had touched one of the metatarsals, only to have it collapse into a pile of black dust.

"Bones do not do this!" Bones exclaimed, staring at pressurized capsule that held the remains, in hopes of preserving them, "They were completely solid yesterday! Only crushing them or introducing them to a type chemical could do this!"

"We checked the security cameras," Booth interrupted, "No one came into the lab."

"And if someone had placed a chemical on the body before we got it, it would have turned to dust as soon as we touched it!" Hodgins added, throwing his hands up in the air. The group stood over the capsule, watching as little by little the bones began to crack.

"When will the results be ready from the metatarsal that Wendell destroyed?" Bones asked impatiently.

"Any minute now." Hodgins answered, casting a side-glance at an insulted Wendell, "Hopefully the chemical analysis tells us _something_."

"I do have some news." Angela said, coming into the room, " The patch of skin with the tattoo-burn-thing matches up with a particular burn mark on the bone underneath."

"Show me." Bones said, following Angela out of the room with the group on their heels.

Once in her room, Angela pressed a few buttons her keyboard and brought up the two pictures.

"The Angela-Tron identified burn patterns," she began, "The bone underneath the tattoo shows that it was burned at a hotter rate than any part of the body."

"Any part?" Cam asked, "How is that possible?"

Angela shrugged,

"It's also a very small spot, about the size of a fingertip, if that helps." she offered. Bones shook her head and asked,

"What else did it show?"

Angela brought up pictures of the torso,

"Burn patterns showed that the heat temperature was stronger around that spot, and that the upper body was hotter than the lower body. _Internally._ The inside burned hotter that the outside. Which is why some skin and clothes were left."

"So, the heat started underneath the tattoo and spread from there _inside the body_? Sounds like something was injected into that starting burn point." Wendell asked, "That sounds more like a disease, not a fire."

"But, the body was found smoking." Bones said, she paused, "Maybe it was a chemical."

All eyes turned to Hodgins,

"Acids could, I guess. They typically leave a heat signature, but not smoke. But, I'll look around." he added half-heartedly. Suddenly, his phone beeped and he scrambled to grab it from his pocket.

"Results from the bone." he said, staring at his phone. He paused, reading, and then heaved a sigh.

"Nothing." he said, looking up and pocketing his phone, "No chemicals. Nothing."

"How is this possible?" Bones asked.

"So let me get this straight," Cam said, crossing her arms over her chest, "The body burned from the inside out, and the burning seemed to start from under the tattoo-thing. Then, there are no chemicals involved and now the body is decomposing at an odd and rapid rate?"

"Sounds about right." Wendell answered. The group stood quiet from a moment, staring at each other. Suddenly, Booth's phone rang, and for some reason, everyone jumped.

"Booth." he said, and then frowned, "Hello?" he paused, "Hello? Can you hear me?" His scowl deepened and then he ended the call, "Bunch of static." he explained to the group that watched intently.

Immediately, his phone rang again.

"Booth." he said with irritation and then his expression cleared, "You did? I'll be right up. Hey, did you just try to call me a minute ago? No? Okay, don't worry about it, I'll be right up."

"What?" Bones asked,

"They found the guys identity, Richard Davis. They went ahead and searched the apartment, and found some weird stuff on his computer." Booth said.

"What kind of weird stuff?" Hodgins asked, looking excited.

"Don't worry about it, bug boy." Booth said, "C'mon Bones."

Hodgins frowned as they left,

"How come they never tell me anything?" he exclaimed.

"Because then you come up with some wild theory, honey." Angela answered with a smile.

"Speaking of which, whatcha come up with?" Wendell asked. Cam rolled her eyes,

"I'm leaving before this gets out of control." she announced and left.

"Okay," Hodgins began, "Satan's pentagram, right? Maybe they had some demonic ritual or something. And maybe, they contacted something."

Booth and Bones sat in his office while they looked over the findings on the computer.

"So, all this was just emailed to me." Booth said, "There's some audio files, personal notes, and web pages that caught the attention of the office squints."

"Okay." Bones said slowly," What kind of stuff."

"Weird research and a possible suspect." Booth said, pulling up the collection of personal notes first,

"Wow," Bones said, looking at the amount, "There's a lot."

"And they started two months ago," Booth said, pointing at the document's date.

"Sounds like whatever was happening started before then," Bones said reading the first note, " Someone was stalking him."

"Why didn't he contact the police?" Bones asked, staring at the screen as Booth scrolled down. He paused,

"Because he probably didn't want the police to find out what he had done." he answered, staring at a note that read,

'She knows. She knows. She knows what I did.'

"Sir?"

Booth and Bones looked up to find an agent in the doorway,

"We found something else." he said, walking forward and placing a blank envelope on the desk."

"Thanks, Anders." Booth said. The man nodded and left. Booth opened it and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper. On it, in elegant writing and scarlet ink, read

'I know, Richard. Now They know. I'm coming, Richard.'

And underneath it, was an upside down pentagram in scarlet ink.

**Hope you enjoyed it! Any reviews or constructive criticism would be great!**


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